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DOBELL COLLECTION 



MERLIN AND ARTHUR. 



THE FOLLOWING 



ESSAY 



IS PRINTED FOB, THE USE OF THE 



EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY, 



WHOSE VALUABLE AND INTEBESTING PUBLICATIONS "WEBE THE MEANS OF 
TURNING THE AUTHOB's ATTENTION TO THE 



HISTORIES OF MERLIN AND ARTHUR. 



1871. 




205449 
'13 



WITH THE AUTHOR'S COMPLIMENTS. 



A 



MERLIN AND ARTHUR 



The sagas of Norse story tell us of the Berserker's rage, when 
the warrior, flingiug aside all prudence, and forgetful of all odds 
against him, striking right and left, rushes into the thick of the 
enemy's ranks. 

There are some points of history which, shaping themselves in 
dream-land, have taken hold of my waking fancies, and now lead 
me, regardless of consequences and adverse criticism, to lay them 
before the public. 

It is well known how our zealous archaeologist in the North, 
Mr. Greenwell, has, in order to increase our knowledge of tribes 
and races of past ages, been upturning the grave-yards alike of 
Briton and Koman, Saxon and Dane ; and how, through these re- 
searches, he has been enabled to parcel out to each tumulus its 
proper skull-name, overthrowing in many instances the traditions of 
the neighbourhood as to its pet Howe or Barrow ; so also I have 
reason to believe that, in connexion with this North-Humberland 
of ours, there are other tumuli which have passed for what they are 
not, and other characters which, on examination, turn out not to 
have been properly classified and sorted. There are some mounds 
in history, as in grave-diggings, which, towering above the rest, 
arrest our attention, and which we long to delve in, assured that 
there is some mystery, some clue to generations past, if you could 
only but unravel it. 



6 



These historic mounds of other days, which stand out clear 
against the sky-line, are connected for the most part with either 
priest or warrior. 

Now, although I disbelieve in history as it is written by moderns, 
I do not disbelieve in history as it was written by ancients. I 
believe that in all these great names and events which captivate 
and interest us, there is some groundwork of truth and fact. There 
is one era which has enthralled the attention and enlisted the re- 
searches of the clever and the learned of many generations, of 
which poets ever sing, and historians ever write, and yet out of the 
dim obscurity of the past no light seems to come to us. In similar 
cases, when this is so, my plan is to ask myself, is the received 
version a correct one ? can I not reconstruct instead, of helping to 
demolish? Are we not all inclined to be influenced by first im- 
pressions, to take up the tale as it has been told us, without 
searching for ourselves whether it has been told us aright or no? 
Are there any two characters, in the history of our land, of clerk 
and hero, more deeply interesting to us than those of Arthur and 
Merlin ? That Early English Text Society, which has done so much 
good with such small amount of means, has lately thrown much 
light upon the subject. 

I shall have, as I go on, to make free with the characters of some 
who are saints in story, but I fear are not above the passions of 
humanity, and to show how the monkish chroniclers of the past, in 
vaunting of their miracles, have unwittingly admitted of their 
frailty. 

I am about to assert that Germanus and Merlin were identical; 
that Blase and Lupus were two names of the same person. I shall 
bring before you many points where the stories told of the one 
name are the same as those which are attributed to the other ; 
that they refer to persons connected with the history of the 
same era ; that there are incidental tales which bear upon their 



7 



private life, which, if true, will account for much that has been 
puzzling in that tangled web of the page of history. We must 
first understand the state of religion and government of the 
countries at the time of which we are about to treat. No words 
can bring it more vividly before you than those of Kingsley's 
"The Koman and the Teuton: The Dying Empire" (p. 33). 
Salvian, a Christian gentleman, born near Treves, married a 
Pagan lady, and wrote his book, " De Gubernatione Dei," 450 
or 455 a.d., a great authority of the state of Gaul when conquered 
by the Franks and Goths and Vandals. " In the years in which 
he lived, 416 a.d. perhaps to 490 a.d., all things were going to 
wrack, the country overrun by foreign invaders ; bankruptcy, devas- 
tation, massacre, and captivity, were, for perhaps 100 years, the 
normal state of Gaul, and most other countries besides. . . . No 
wonder, if Salvian's accounts of Gaulish profligacy be true, that 
Gaulish recklessness reached at last a pitch all but incredible. He 
says (p. 43) he himself saw, both at Treves and another city, old 
men of rank, decrepit Christians, slaves to gluttony and lust, rabid 
with clamour, furious with Bacchanalian orgies. ... In contrast 
with all these abominations, Salvian sets forth boldly and honestly 
the superior morality of the barbarians (p. 46). 'We, professing 
orthodoxy, are profligate hypocrites ! They, half heathen, half 
Arians, are honester men, purer than we!'" 

In language still stronger Gildas speaks of the vices of those 
who bear rule in Britain. He recapitulates their kings by name, 
and tells horrible tales of their adulteries and vices, of the shame- 
lessness of their daughters, of the drunkenness and immorality of 
the whole race. He expressly states, that not only are the laity 
given up to such evil practices, but that priest and people are alike. 
"0 ye enemies of God, not priests ! O ye traders in wickedness, 
and not bishops!" (sec. 108). "Wallowing after the fashion of 
swine, in their old and unhappy puddle of intolerable wickedness, 



8 



after they have attained unto the seat of the priesthood or episcopal 
dignity" (sec. 67). 

Gildas also speaks of these bishops " as crossing the seas," and 
then, " with magnificent ostentation, returning to their own native 
soil," and "intruding themselves into their own country again as 
creatures of a new mould, or rather as instruments of the Devil " 
(sec. 68). 

Having thus far cleared the ground to enable me to gain a fair 
hearing, I proceed further to affirm that there is an a priori pre- 
sumption in my favour, if I state that a bishop of Gaul or Britain 
of that age is of blameful life, and that it is no way improbable 
that a king's daughter might be classed amongst dishonourable 
women. Gildas clearly had some reason for sneering at over- sea 
bishops. A bishop to have a character as a respectable and moral 
man must evidently rise above the level of his day. If, then, we 
find that there is a something in his election and consecration 
abhorrent to our feelings, and if in the after-conduct of the man 
there is a manifest want of straightforwardness in the events of his 
life, after " crossing the seas," we may safely and not uncharitably 
set him down as one of those who were present to the mind's eye 
of Salvian and Gildas, when they wrote the account of their con- 
temporaries. 

Germanus was given to hunting, and used to hang up his trophies 
on a sacred tree. He was in office at Auxerre, under the Eoman 
Emperor ; he was of noble parents. St. Amator cuts down his 
pet tree, and Germanus vows revenge. ' f St. Amator forestalls 
him, and, obtaining leave from the Prefect of Gaul, causes his 
ecclesiastics to lay hold of Germanus, and obliged him tc quit his 
secular habit and to receive the clerical tonsure, assuring him that 
such was the will of God ; to which Germanus, struck with astonish- 
ment, durst not make any opposition" (Brit. Sancta, part ii. p. 49). 
He was pitched upon by the Gallican synod (so we are told), with 



9 



Lupus, to go into Britain to oppose the Pelagian heresy. The 
evil spirits had announced to the Britons his coming, and they were 
there to meet him. He has a public disputation, and beats his 
opponents by a miracle. They are too honest to pretend to cure 
the blind ; Germanus has no such scruples, and restores the girl to 
her sight. The devil lays a snare for him, and catches him by the 
foot. We cannot but think that before a man takes part in the 
play, or getting up of a sham miracle, he must either have lost or 
else never possessed any reverence for the great God of heaven and 
earth. The Saxons and Picts come to attack them ; Germanus puts 
himself at their head ; their enemies are worsted, and the bishops, 
having delivered them " from their visible and invisible enemies," 
return home. Germanus returns a second time, gets his opponents 
all banished. . . . Goes to Eavenna to intercede for the Armoricans 
with the Emperor Yalentinian. Bede mentions his name in the 
chapter next after the account of Ambrosius Aurelius. He adds 
that Germanus said "he would be their leader," that he " picked out 
the most active, viewed the country round about, and fixed upon 
a valley encompassed with hills where to make his stand," and 
then gives an account of the battle won by the Hallelujah Chorus ! 
(Bede, i. 20). Geoffrey of Monmouth (b. vi. c. 13) places their 
arrival in the time of Vortigern and Yortimer. Nennius (History 
of the Britons, p. 32) fixes the adventures of Germanus during 
the reign of Yortigern, and the time of the coming of the Saxons ; 
gives us an extraordinary account of Yortigern's daughter, an 
" immodest woman," declaring publicly that Germanus was father 
of her child ; Germanus by a " tu quoque " turns the tables 
upon Yortigern, a who, without deigning a reply, arose and left the 
synod in great anger." Germanus, with remarkable kindness of 
disposition, says, "I will be a father to you, my son" (sec. 39), 
and brings him up as his own son ! Yortigern flees, but Germanus 
follows him, and upon a rock prays for him forty days and forty 



10 



nights. Then " the blessed man is chosen commander against the 
Saxons " (sec. 47). Again, Vortigern flees from St. Germanus to 
the kingdom of the Diinetse, and built a castle there ; "the saint, as 
usual, followed him," and prayed to the Lord three days and three 
nights, and Vortigern and Hengist's daughter, his other wives, and 
all the inhabitants, both men and women, miserably perished. 
" St. Germanus after his death returned into his own country " 
(sec. 50). Now it is singular that Bede and Nennius, in their 
accounts of the history of these wars, make no mention of the name 
of Merlin, yet in other authors he fills such a distinguished place. 
The chroniclers who speak most of Germanus speak little or 
nothing of Merlin ; whilst, on the other hand, they who have much 
to tell of Merlin make short mention or none of Germanus. In 
Geoffrey, for instance, the allusion (b. vi. c. 13) seems more as if 
it was dragged in or interpolated out of place by an after-editor, 
who thought it would never do to have his author write a history 
of those times without mention of Germanus and Lupus. The 
chapter appears more naturally to begin at " The king being now," 
etc., etc., taking the story up from the end of the twelfth chapter. 

In Layamon, Vortimer's counsellor is not Germanus, but Merlin. 
Merlin, like Germanus, is clerk and warrior. In all these transac- 
tions he is mixed up with Vortigern and Aurelius and Uther. 
Merlin had knowledge of and friends in Armorica (Lay. ii. 249, 291). 
When Uther was made king, " Merlin went away, and the people 
knew not whither he went" (311). In "Merlin" (E. E. Text Soc, 
p. 43), they ask Merlin "to abide with them, and govern them." 
There is great joy amongst the people, who recognize Merlin, " the 
wisest man in all the worlde. ... He will teach you how to get 
the castell." Merlin says "he must leave for a long time" (p. 57). 
" Guynebaude opposed hym of dyuerse thynges, for he was a pro- 
founde clerke. Merlyn hym ansuerde to alle the questiouns. 
Merlin seide he neuer founde no clerke that euer hadde spoke to 



11 



hym of so high clergie ne not Blase, that was so holy a man" 
(p. 139). 

Geoffrey of Monmouth, I noticed above, whilst he treats of these 
same times, says little of Germanus and Lupus, and much of Merlin 
(book vi. c. 13). Just mentions their arrival, " the preaching of 
these holy men, and the many miracles they wrought." It is 
Merlin, and not Germanus, who is near at hand when Yortigern 
is burnt in his castle. It is Merlin who, in like manner with 
Germanus, goes out to war (book viii. 15), and " attended this 
expedition to give his advice in the management of the war." 

Now I come to the critical point of my story, where it requires 
great care and close attention to unravel the twisted skein. 

In these narratives there is mention made of a king's daughter, who 
is with child when she has no husband, and which said child, for 
some reason or other, is commonly mixed up in some extraordinary 
way with Germanus. Merlin also we find in suspicious circum- 
stances, and in league with Blase at one time, and Ulf or Ulfin at 
another, to procure a certain secresy for the birth of a particular 
child of royal stock, and to have it carried away, christened and 
brought up. Let us compare the different accounts. It is evident 
that at a synod, or husting or Thing, as they would have been after 
called, there took place much the same as we find in the ISTorse 
Sagas, when Christianity and Paganism came in contact. It was 
a struggle for pre-eminence. It is clear (Nennius, 39, 40) that the 
Christian party were the stronger ; the Pagan, with Yortigern, the 
weaker. It is clear the king's daughter had a child by some one, 
and that she said it was by Germanus (Nennius, 39). The 
Christian party, however, get the victory, and the child is left in 
the custody of Germanus. The mother, the daughter of the King 
of the Dimetians, is styled "an immodest woman," and we also 
find at that era a daughter of a king of Dimetia called a " shameless 
daughter" (Gildas, sec. 31). If we put together Gildas's account 



12 



of his own time, from which it appears that morals and society- 
were worse, if possible, in Britain than elsewhere, as well as the 
accounts which Gildas gives of these over-sea bishops, and Salvian 
of Gaul, we shall not be very uncharitable if we come to the con- 
clusion that Germanus was probably, as stated, the father of the 
child. In Nennius (sec. 40) the Pagan party., i.e. the Druids, 
plot a plan to make away with this child. In sec. 42 he is 
said to be the son of a Eoman consul. Germanus was appointed 
to high office by the Eoman Emperor Honorius, was a personal 
friend of Valentinian, and married a noble lady at Eome. Is it 
not most probable that he was sent over by Honorius from Gaul, 
where he had high military renown, when, in answer to the em- 
bassy from Britain, he sent them " a legion which destroyed a vast 
multitude of the Barbarians, and drove the rest out of the bounds 
of Britain" (Paul Diac. lib. 4) ? and may he not have returned the 
second time, when once again Valentinian sent them help ; that it 
was not a ''spiritual but carnal war" (Bede, i. 17) he came to 
wage, and that Morgan or Pelagius may be another name for 
Armoricus ? It would be easy, in after-ages, for monkish writers to 
turn the war into a spiritual war, and the Armorican invasion into 
an heretical raid, the authors of which were at any rate " conveyed 
up into the continent that the country might be rid of them" 
(Bede, i. 21). 

Now, in Percy's Merlin (Ed. Furnivall), 832, the same story 
crops up as regards Merlin's mother. Blasye the Hermit takes 
great interest in her, when she comes to tell him of her case, 
promises he will " help her with all his might," fights her battle 
with "the justice;" she is shut up in a tower until she is con- 
fined; the child is, however, let down by a cord, and he takes 
him home and christens him; and this child "is of God, sende 
for to helpe Englande " (1084). 

Then we draw on to the account of the story of Igerne and Uther, 



13 



(see Morte d'Arthur, b. i. ; c. iii. ; c. vi. ; c. xviii. ; c. xix.) as 
related in all authors (Chroniclis of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 204) : — 

" And of his getting TJther sum men sais 
Be meane of Merling in tha samin dais ; 
The quilk Uter transformit mervelus 
Into the figour of this Gothlous 
Syne in his likenes with his wyfe he la. 
Gif this be suith I can nocht to yow sa, 
Becaus sic thing is nocht kyndlie to be, 
Thairfor myself will hald it for ane lie." 

Few, I think, will disagree with our Chronicler in his outspoken 
and emphatic words. Put it into plain English (Layamon, Brut, 
vol. ii. p. 385) : " Igasrne was great with child by Uther king, 
all through Merlin's craft, before she wedded." Her husband was 
at the wars ; he never returned, and was killed. Igerne, whilst 
what we call a "grass widow," was with child (bear in mind the 
account Gildas gives of the morals of all the royal courts of those 
days). Merlin and Ulf take a great interest in that child ; indeed, 
Merlin has " written down the Jioar and the day when he was begotten" 
(Merlin, E. E. Text, p. 77). Merlin says " he shall have the child, and 
must do something to atone for his share in the sin." Ulf says the 
queen must be told when he is born to give the child to the first man 
in the hall ; it is so given and brought away, and christened Arthur. 
The king is dying, " some say dead" when Merlin appears upon the 
scene, and whispers to the king, " and no one hears his last words 
but Merlin, but his son Arthur is to be king, and accomplish the 
round table." " Thus lefte the kynge with-outen heyre" (95). 
Ban and Bors and the British kings won't take in the story, and 
require corroborative evidence, when Merlin wants them "to do 
homage to Arthur," and it is not until Merlin has sworn before the 
archbishop that Arthur is the son of Uther Pendragon, that they 
give in. It is ever and alway doubted. Galashyn (p. 177) asks 
his mother, and she tells him " how it was true that Arthur was 
begotten of Igerne, and how he was carried away as a child, and 



that tlie barons would not have him to reign over them." Gawaine 
also questions his mother "if it is true about Arthur being Uter 
Pendragon's son " (p. 184). Now, if this was brought into court and 
sifted, what would Lord Penzance say of this story, and the entry 
in the private diary of the hour and the day when the child was be- 
gotten ? Is not the account of this boy carried off and brought up by 
Blase, or Ulf, or Merlin, a different version of the same story of Ger- 
manus, and the son of the king of Dimetia's daughter ? Will it not 
account for the desire to foist Igerne's child upon TJther, who dies 
" with-outen heyre," in order that, coming of Uther's race, he may 
succeed to Uther's sovereignty, and become Pendragon ? Weigh the 
doubtfulness of the whole story, no one knowing anything about 
it until after Uther's death, the suspicious whisperings at the death- 
bed, after, " as some said the life had left him." Note also (Laya- 
mon, p. 385) that " he (Uther) was an old man, and illness came on 
him ; the illness laid him down ; sick was Uther Pendragon ; so he 
was here sick seven years." This gay Lothario was paralyzed, and 
" old," and sick, and yet Arthur was only fifteen years of age when 
he died ! Public opinion was strong upon the subject, and the way 
in which the barons held back, and the complaints of wrong made 
by Mordred on behalf of his being " done" out of the kingdom, 
seem to point to my solution of the story being not far wrong, viz., 
that Arthur was Merlin's illegitimate son. 

Lastly, I make a point which I consider of more consequence 
than any of the preceding. It is the undesigned coincidences of 
evidence which ever bring the strongest conviction to our minds. 
Germanus's friend and intimate and associate is Lupus. 1 Merlin's 
friend and intimate and associate is either Blase, or else Ulf. Now 
Bla, or Blaidd, or Blase, is Keltic, and Ulf or Wulf, Norse or 
Saxon for Wolf = Lupus. The Eomans ever translated into Latin, 



1 See Villemarque's note, p. 147. 



15 



as near as. may be, the names of the people and the places they 
came in contact with. 

Surely, as we weave these narratives together and spin our yarn^ 
keeping in view one particular thread which seems to guide us 
through the labyrinth, we arrive at the conclusion that the views 
now put forward may be, on further research, not found so very 
far from the truth. 

There will yet remain many differences to be reconciled, and 
many discrepancies of dates and names, of persons and places, to be 
brought into unison. No one but those who have to do with MSS. 
can know what liberties transcribers of old oftentimes took with 
their subject ; how in some places they interpolated, and in others 
altered the text, often meaning well in order to correct what they 
thought must be error ; and again, how a monkish scribe would 
colour or twist facts to meet his own particular purposes, or hide 
some scandal to his cloth. 

I believe and am sure topography would strengthen my case, but 
I wish not to overcrowd my narrative, or draw off attention from 
my main point ; suffice it upon this head to say that I agree upon 
the whole with the theory advanced so ably by Mr. Glennie and 
Mr. Skene as to the scene of Arthur's exploits being North of the 
Humber. 

Scott F. Surtees. 

Sprotbroitgh, Doncaster. 



STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, PRINTERS, HERTFORD. 



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